_A Plutocracy with trickle down economics._  Would be my term to describe it.

And those fail always.

I find it that it is true based on my limited interaction with the community. Thats ofc not a fool proof position but anything going forward would need to be consensus based. 
A vote. 1account/1vote... 
And not a plutoratic vote. Plutocracy is a failed system that should be recreated here if we want to sustaun steem for a long time.

if you belong to any community, test the poll there ;)

Haha. Take bot delegation to higher percentages and see what happens. We will get there very soon. . Wanna run a poll? How about a referendum?😉

I understand your position but i obviously disagree. 
Like Fyrst said. Bots live of the <b>Crap content economy</b>.. They earn from it and they encourage it because its good for business. 

Im positive those that hold the most SP would not leave the platform if bots werent a thing. They were here long before that. Steem offers other investment opportunities. Consider Meerkat and Hendrikdegrote. 
Their support of Curie for example does earn them a nice return on investment without them having to lift a finger. If they did try to flee they would create a cascade and the price would plummet hurting them as well. 
Rarely any platform offers additional investment opportunity outside price speculation like steem does. Nah theyre not stupid.  

If this does continue for 2 or 3 years, which hopefully will not be the case, you will have a large contingent of  bloggers that grew their blog through bots. Those blogs will receive no following what so ever. That can be seen right now. The interaction rate on the posts from those that bot frequently, without boting is close to zero. Its all artificial, non-organic. 
What they are doing for themselves, in the long run is absolutely worthless. 
If they couldnt attract any following or interest without bots then once they stop boting not a single thing will change. 

Consider Yallapapi, who is a decent writer. He threw thousand of SBD at bots. How many people do you think read anything he writes when he doesnt use bots? He might as well be a rating 25 newbie on Steem. 

What bots do create is the idea that Steem is a crap content economy and that does hurt investment. <b> Investors arent crazy. When they see a platform that failed at its core idea they will not come here. </b> Powering down takes time and locking your SP in a platform thats seen as a failure in its ability to fulfill its goal is a super risky business decision. 
  

And that is the consensus when an outsider looks at whats trending. There is no escaping that. 
Not a single good thing will come from bots. Not for you or me or the bot owners. In the long run if the "shit content economy" persists we all get hurt. 

Thats why im asking: "What happens if bot delegation reaches 80%-90%? 
The new quality creators will all leave. Every single one of them. 
The quality atm is hidden in the lower levels of the trending pages, but with higher Bot delegation that will be completely wiped out. 
Those are the people that bring value to the platform. Those that have the ability to create interest in their content.

I will read and respond to this tomorrow because it's 2:21AM and I am about to go sleep.

>As for the rest of your opinion on what and how the economics work out it is an experiment and I want to see us attract investors.

It's neither opinion nor about how economics work out,  whatever that nonsensical assertion was meant to say.  He was talking about the function of the reward pool being turned on its head and being no longer a Reward pool but a product.

What's the experiment? The one without any control or hypothesis and the one that nobody knows anything about, the nameless experiment of "attracting investors"? Is this a multilevel marketing scam? Did you end up here simply to make money regardless of why and what the function you condone abuses what it was created for? Wait,  I'm attempting to drag the conversation back into the realm of what money cannot buy,  or a community, let's discuss what will get us to the moon for a moment before the bubble bursts and people are left in ruin because you think people throwing money at the system is the reason we're all here. Heck Steem was created to get investors. 

> I stand by my view that if investors come it will not be for the content or a perfectly functioning reward system. It will be for the tech, the traffic or the crypto.

So the tech doesn't include content or a properly functioning system,  rewards and all and you're OK with people speculating with Steem, because crypto. Because Steem is for investors.

>There are hundreds of sites that people can share their writing. Most of them do not have investors.

Ergo Steem was created for investment. Brilliant deduction, the grand nameless experiment provides. 

As for the accusations that you were attacked, you deserve an apology,  or it simply befuddles you that your financial situation might be why you're so vocal about "it's your stake do whatever you want with it" and equally "Steem is for investors, who are looking for a quick pump or "tech" and here's another less vacuous label that conveniently is wide open to interpretation to mean anything and everything CRYPTO" yet we were talking about the lack of a functional curation (promotion? **Hell yeah,  it's your stake,  hashtag-voturbation for life)  system and soon enough we are going to discuss a functional moderation system that's both decentralized and redundant proof,  or STABLE and  SENSIBLY IMPLEMENTED. 
The attack you  perceive now will be far less interpretive than now,  and we will have a way to put your mouth up to the light of scrutiny next time you try to spread Bullshit,  ain't anyone wasting their votes,  they will stake their very name,  account and stake behind that Bullshit and the cost will be so big that a mass exodus will take place and from that day forward we will forget all this circular motion "adjusting" what we know won't work,  instead of allowing for you and your accusations of attack to have a redress as simple as a button that actually flags and isn't only a downvote to those that know what's at stake.

I have just read my own reply before reading yours in order to refresh my memory of what's been said here so far. I should say that the tone of my comment could have been improved upon, but in truth I did not expect a response, and so I didn't think to make the effort to uphold myself in the manner in which I typically would when debating a serious issue. 

With that said, it does seem as though you have misinterpreted the overwhelming majority of my comment, for as I said, I didn't expect a response from you, and so my comment was for those who I expected to read it, not for you. 

I don't know what your relationship with fyrstikken is, nor do I consider it relevant in this context. If that was in response to the bold comment at the end, again that was not aimed directly at you. That was a comment to those dolphins who have already made a lot for keeping their mouths shut on the abuse we all know they've witnessed, for I believe it is time for some influential members of the community to start speaking out against abusers instead of continuously advocating  for their increasingly despicable behaviour by remaining silent. But again, this was merely an opportunity I seized to say something that's been on my mind. It's not tied specifically to vote-selling and so if you want to speak on the comment in bold at the end, then we can discuss that in a separate thread.

But for now, let me address the points that I do feel matter.


> If Ned made a post about killing someone, if I took it seriously I would call the authorities.

Though you haven't said it in this sentence, I am going to presume that you mean "with Steemit funds" as that is the question that was posed. It sounds to me that you then already agree with me that if someone wants to use their stake for illicit purposes, then others have not only the right but the obligation to intervene.

> I would not buy a toddler.

This doesn't really answer the inferred question. I used a child as an extreme example to make the point that because something is for sale does not mean it ought to be.  Is this something you would also agree with?

> As for the rest of your opinion on what and how the economics work out it is an experiment and I want to see us attract investors. I stand by my view that if investors come it will not be for the content or a perfectly functioning reward system. It will be for the tech, the traffic or the crypto. There are hundreds of sites that people can share their writing. Most of them do not have investors.

It is an experiment indeed, for we've been told that they're attempting to try something new here.  If we are going to do everything exactly the same as it is done in the world beyond the blockchain; then why refer to it as an experiment at all? 

I would argue that attracting investors ought not to be a priority. There is enough value in this ecosystem already. But, to better respond to this point I will pretend for a moment that I do think attracting investors ought to be a priority right now. If that's the case, then the type of investors we attract is of the utmost importance, for they are typically going to be more influential than the thousands of minnows who simply sign up and attempt to earn their stakes. 

If you create an environment where vote-selling is an acceptable practice, then you are going to draw in investors who are comfortable with that. This means that if a lot of the most powerful members of the STEEM ecosystem are making the bulk of their profits through the selling of votes, then Steemit and STEEM will evolve in such a way as to accommodate and facilitate the practice- rather than evolving around the more appropriate notion of fairness.

If however, we embraced this an experiment, and remembered that the reason we needed this experiment was because the old way was not working very well for most, then we might not so quickly justify abuse by pointing out the window and saying, "look, they've always done this."

It happens in the real world is not a legitimate justification to permit abusive behaviour within an experimental economy that purports itself to be striving for better.

One seriously needs to consider the mindset of a whale who would sell votes on this platform. We are talking about people who already have so much influence on this platform they could make more than dolphins make through posting simply by upvoting content. Curation rewards exist after all to incentivize fair voting.

But these whales are willing to continue cashing in on the curation rewards they are paid to make sure that all deserving get to eat, and are now getting the poorest of us to send them money just for an upvote that they're paid to hand out for free anyway?

This is deeply immoral, because one can never know exactly how many mouths will not be fed because of the actions they have taken- very unnecessary actions if you consider the ease of earning more STEEM for whales.

It doesn't take much in the way of reflection to ascertain that this greed comes from a place of fear. We are all humans, and so we need only look inside ourselves to learn why others do the things they do. It is clear to me that whether it be fear of not having enough, fear of looking weaker than other whales, or fear of being less influential and therefore having to rely on their personality, it is most definitely fear that leads to greed.

So do we need people whose entire agendas are dictated by fear to be the most powerful within the community? Where would that get us? - hint; look out the window.

Fear aside, how about the fact that by selling votes, these whales of reversed the distribution of STEEM on the network. It  is now being concentrated within the wallets of a few(though they may have many wallets), and so each time any person buys a vote, we are making a member of the community who cares only about their own prosperity- and who is willing to impoverish others to get it - more powerful. That's a dangerous road that leads to future where a few megawhales have complete control over how the reward pool is distributed.

If even that is not enough; then what about the dangers of vote-selling to not just minnows who are unwilling to buy votes- but to every single holder of STEEM. I refer to the obvious truth that this platform became a pyramid scheme the moment we allowed vote-selling to thrive. New users come here and send their money up the ladder to those who already have the most. It should not take a mathematician to see that this leads only to a few unfathomably wealthy people, and countless poor ones. (That is, if it doesn't get brought down like bitconnect in light of this vote selling fiasco)

> There are hundreds of sites that people can share their writing. Most of them do not have investors.

As you said, this is not a site like any other. This is an experiment. The supposed purpose of that experiment is to do things better than they were done before - to do things *fairer.* That was the chief selling point when I joined, and we have done a horrible job of living up to it.

Vote selling perpetuates inequity, and more than that, it makes members of the community who care  little about the community, the most powerful ones in the community. Why would anyone want that?

> When I trade with someone in cash or in crypto their financial status has nothing to do with the deal.

This is not true. The wealthiest of us always pay the least for things, if they pay at all.

> The deal is about a product if I buy milk, I do not pay based on the financial status of the seller, I pay based on the price of milk.

Again, untrue. The financial status of the seller is undoubtedly a primary factor dictating the price of the milk.

But, let's stop talking about milk and trading. This does not matter. Let's stop using the outside world to justify what goes on within this new, experimental ecosystem.

Let's instead just ask a few simple questions;

What is the purpose of curation rewards?

Should whales be receiving them for selling votes?

If we are to get rid of one; curation rewards or vote-selling; which should we get rid of?

- I hope you don't mind but I'm going to ignore your last two questions because as I explained, they aren't within the context of the debate.

Look, I understand that you and I disagree.  I'm just not sure why you are so bothered by my opinion.  

Anyway, feel free to comment on all of my posts, while saying nasty things about me.

In all the times we have disagreed, I have never attacked your character or anything about YOU at all.  I just disagree with your view.

**If someone made a post on Steemit tomorrow stating that they were looking for the funds needed to buy a gun so that they could shoot up a school. And if that post was upvoted by the steemit inc account, would you have a problem with this?**

I would have a problem with it, and that's why I have a problem with this too. They are both immoral and could quite potentially result in the loss of life.

I believe I once put it this way; 

Buying a vote from a bidbot is like paying for your rapist's penis enlargement surgery. With every purchase they get more powerful, and can fuck you that much harder, that much easier. 

We are making people who have no regard for creators in the community the most influential people in the community.

As I said to someone a moment ago; they advertised this place as somewhere you could earn money through creating content, not somewhere where you could pay someone to give you money. Do you not see the entire content aspect of the platform has been rendedered redundant by these bots????????????????????????????????????

In that case I think it depends a lot on the SMTs that are being developed. There is certainly potential and steem could be just the underlying currency as ethereum is for daps.

Without meaningful SMTs I see no future for steem as we have a lot of fast and cheap currencies already. Take for example bitconnect. Some people argued it would still be okay since it still is a cryptocurrency. But we have enough cryptocurrencies, what we need is innovation.